The Inviting Jesus

Intro: Question by Yousef. But, how do you get people to convert?

Kate McCord - Land of the Blue Burqas. Who we follow does matter.

I. How did Jesus get people to follow Him?

A.

Sometimes they just followed Him.

B. Jesus was exceptional

He still is!

They just did.

Other times he asked people to and they did.

The ones who did, knew that He was the Christ.

The one who was prophesied about.

They followed Him because they knew who He was.

They followed Him because He healed them.

Because He forgave them.

II. What does this say about Jesus?

A. Jesus was exceptional.

He still is!

He was not like John the Baptist, Abraham, Noah, King David.

He was and is divine.

B. Jesus offered grace and peace.

i. He offered forgiveness.

He certainly called people to repentance, and gave warnings to those who would not repent, but there was this overwhelming grace that pours from Him.

There was this willingness to be rejected, scorned, and turned away from.

C. How did He react to people who walked away.

Did He persecute them?

Force them?

He allowed Himself to be rejected, scorned, mocked etc.

III. How does this affect us?

A. We don’t get people to follow us!

We want them to follow Jesus!

We all know this, but we need to continue to practice this.

We know our own failures, and we certainly don’t want to mar the image of our Teacher and Savior, but on the other hand we want them to follow Jesus and not us.

This can be freeing. Again, because of abuse of this we tend to over-react in the other direction.

B. Who we follow does matter.

i. We aren’t really called to follow, King David, Samuel, Abraham.

I was surprised when Yousef was offended, when I mentioned that Abraham had done some things wrong.

We can certainly learn from them.

Great lessons by what they did and what they did not do.

The fact that how we end life is of utmost importance.

They still are not the Lamb of God.

“Behold the Lamb of God”

“Come and see” who? Jesus.

C. We can lead people into a quasi Follower of Jesus.

Does anyone recognize this?

Maybe we ourselves have experienced this, or we have helped someone on this path. Like ok turn right, now left. Always needing to be told every step.

The goal is that we are lead by Jesus.

It can be easy when people see us living something out and like it, to focus on these things, and maybe not the source of these things.

We can end up with people who always need to be taught.

Who it doesn’t flow naturally.

We need to be continually maintaining our relationship with the source of life.

1 John 2:27 NKJV

27 But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.

Obviously, we have many teachings and examples of the Apostles teaching and learning from one another, so it’s not an either or, but our teaching and conversations will continually point people to the ultimate Teacher.

Conclusion: Look unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.